I don’t pretend to understand animals, any more than they understand me

The other week, I found myself sharing a sofa with a dog on live television,
in a discussion of the week’s affairs

The dog as man’s best friend was fully endorsed by the report of a driver, pulled over by the police for driving eccentrically, who claimed that it wasn’t his fault. It was his dog that had been driving. Photo: ALAMY

I’ve nothing against animals. Like any good father, I’ve had my share of dogs, cats, hamsters, goldfish and even cows. I don’t pretend to understand them, any more than they understand me, but I could say the same about teenagers, what the characters on EastEnders are saying, or why anybody thought that the euro was a good idea.

And I have to confess that horses leave me cold, although I’ve owned half a fetlock of a couple. Perhaps it’s because one went to its eternal reward before putting as much as a hoof on a racecourse, and the other might as well not have bothered. The other week, I found myself sharing a sofa with a dog on live television, in a discussion of the week’s affairs. Luckily, it was in the dead of night, and not too many scathing comments have been passed, in my hearing, on the superiority of the animal’s contribution compared with mine. The dog was asleep, as were most right-thinking members of the viewing public.

It was Andrew Neil’s programme, and his dog. I don’t know how often he brings it along to keep other television presenters off his sofa, but it’s further confirmation of the anthropomorphism that epitomises the British attitude to animals: a dog wins a nationwide talent contest, rising above the paltry efforts of mere humans; another achieves fame by growling on television and is fondly imagined to be speaking, even if it can only say “sausages”; a faithful mutt discovers its owner’s long-lost ring, and no day goes by without an animal story, whether it’s a housewife who was once brought up by monkeys, the non-performing pandas, or horses being treated better than children.

The dog as man’s best friend was fully endorsed by the report of a driver, pulled over by the police for driving eccentrically, who claimed that it wasn’t his fault. It was his dog that had been driving. The man’s counsel, aptly named Foggo, said in his defence: “My client is bored.” The state of mind of the dog didn’t come up. It recalled a true story of another peculiar driving contretemps, in Ireland, where devotion to animals – apart from horses – is not so marked as here (although in a little town in the county of Clare I have seen a calf seated snugly in the back of a small family saloon).

An alert police patrol on an Irish back road spotted a car being driven in an unconventional manner, and pulled it over for inspection. No whiff of alcohol was detected, and the driver, sober as a judge, was surprised and not a little offended to be apprehended in such a manner. As he indignantly stepped from his vehicle, however, the reason for the car’s uneven progress became apparent: in place of the two front seats stood two kitchen chairs. The driver was further taken aback by what he took to be the overreaction of the police to this discovery. It seemed to him that they were excessively concerned at the idea of a car being driven over winding country roads while the two front seats slid all over the floor.

Was it not perfectly understandable to remove two comfortable, upholstered car seats and place them around his kitchen hearth, where he sat after a hard day’s work, while replacing them in the car with his serviceable, but hard, old kitchen chairs?

It’s to be hoped that the law didn’t come down too hard on the fellow. The logic can’t be denied: a car is for work, a kitchen for sitting.